Card advantage?

[TheyCallMeTim]

Why is Hypnotic Specter considered good and Cold-eyed Selkie regarded as bad?

[CorpT]

Why is Hypnotic Specter considered good and Cold-eyed Selkie regarded as bad?

A) No one considers Hypnotic Specter good. It sees/saw some very limited play in Suicide Black decks that no one runs anymore.
B) Cold-Eyed Selkie is a decent card against several decks and see some play in sideboards.
C) You should probably reconsider the people you're talking to about card evaluations.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

You can ritual -> Hippie.
You cant ritual out selkie and hippie is only really scary on turn 1

[jrsthethird]

You can double Spirit Guide -> Selkie.

[Aggro_zombies]

You can double Spirit Guide -> Selkie.
That's still worse than Ritual. Also, flying is generally a better form of evasion than Islandwalk.

[mujadaddy]

Ibtl?

[kiblast]

i wonder why threads like this pop on the source.
Hypnotic was good 6-8 years ago. I mean, you can still play it, but unless you ritual it on turn one, it is really slow.
Also 3cc 2/2 isn't really worth.
On the other side, cold-eyed selkie is a house in Vintage.

Also double spirit guide into cold eyed selkie is one of the worst turn one play ever. There's nothing good with it.

Ps. Lock this thread.

[TheyCallMeTim]

I appologize, never meant to cause any issues. I realize the obsurdity of asking the question, hence it being posted in the Community Board instead of DTB. Maybe I suck at Magic for thinking Hippie is good or maybe it's just 'cause I haven't been into the game too much these past 7 years. Nonetheless, these comments have been generally informative. I keep looking at Selkie and think it'd be nice to draw 2+ cards off of her every turn. At the same time, I haven't even considered testing it because it just seems bad, in a way I wasn't able to explain. Perhaps it was some Magi-intuition I developed over years of playing, but thanks for some further insight. However, I still have an urge to play bad cards!

[dahcmai]

It's just power creep really. Hippie used to be the premiere nastiness you could pop on someone. Then slowly as things got slowly quicker and wizards printed better card quality, he started to lose some of his luster. You can't really find too many decks that aren't scared of a hippie on turn 1.

The decks today just got to the point where they practically have 2 kills spells in the opening hand just to deal with the things that are normal in the format as is. Goblin Lacky and random things like that are just "must answer" cards and people have accounted for that. So when you cast a Dark Ritual into a Hippie, it just seems painful to lose him to that one or less mana answer and be 2 for 1'ed.

It's still a strong play and when things like Lacky are no longer worth playing, hippie's time might come back.

[Rune]

A few Bant Aggro decks maindeck Selkie. It's pretty good against Merfolk since it wlil draw you into your plow effects and equipment. Against other blue decks it also tends to end the game if it isn't answered immediately since a swing with a couple of exalted triggers will put you very far ahead.

[Elfrago]

In a vacuum Hyppie has better evasion ,a better body and can be played off ritual mana, that's why it was considered good.

Still, right now, the metagame sucks for Hyppie and is a lil better for Selki.e

[Elfrago]

In a vacuum Hyppie has better evasion ,a better body and can be played off ritual mana, that's why it was considered good.

Still, right now, the metagame sucks for Hyppie and is a lil better for Selkie.

[TheyCallMeTim]

See, I can't help but think that I can make it unblockable with Merfolk Sovereign and protect it with counter spells. I think it could be a better inclusion in Merfolk than Standstill is because it is less conditional and has a good creature type. Of course this has been tested or contemplated by many others before me and presumed to be a less than valuable choice. Which, for me at least, begs the question.

[Purgatory]

Right now, I wouldn't sleeve up either of those for a tournament, but I like Hyppie more because of the turn 1-brokeness and of nostalgia factors, of course.

[Oiolosse]

I agree with you Tim, Selkie looks tempting. So many blue decks, exalted, merfolk lords, pump...there are ways to produce HUGE CA.

Hippie is too slow now unfortunately. Nostalgia factor though in casual, I still cast hippies from time to time.

[jrsthethird]

I appologize, never meant to cause any issues. I realize the obsurdity of asking the question, hence it being posted in the Community Board instead of DTB. Maybe I suck at Magic for thinking Hippie is good or maybe it's just 'cause I haven't been into the game too much these past 7 years. Nonetheless, these comments have been generally informative. I keep looking at Selkie and think it'd be nice to draw 2+ cards off of her every turn. At the same time, I haven't even considered testing it because it just seems bad, in a way I wasn't able to explain. Perhaps it was some Magi-intuition I developed over years of playing, but thanks for some further insight. However, I still have an urge to play bad cards!

Since you're admittedly out of it, here's an example of why Selkie is better, with appropriate card tags:

T1: Trop, Noble Hierarch
T2: land, Selkie
T3: Swing for 2 (because of Exalted); maybe more if you drop another Hierarch or a Qasali Pridemage

Selkie has awesome synergy with the other 2 cards that are heavy staples of Bant (GWU) decks, and the acceleration used to get him out early not only sticks around for longer, it doesn't waste a card (unlike Dark Ritual, which is once and done).

Double Spirit Guide into Selkie was obviously sarcastic.

[Finn]

Read your own words, Tim.

See, I can't help but think that I can make it unblockable with Merfolk Sovereign and protect it with counter spells. I think it could be a better inclusion in Merfolk than Standstill is because it is less conditionalHow is that not a very conditional card?

Stick with Standstill or do without. Selkie is not the solution. It is win-more.

[TheyCallMeTim]

Read your own words, Tim.
How is that not a very conditional card?

Stick with Standstill or do without. Selkie is not the solution. It is win-more.


I said "less conditional". There are times when Standstill is a completely dead card. At the very least, Selkie is another body. With a minimum of 12 Lords and 8 counter magic, the Merfolk player has much more control over these conditions. Which would you prefer to draw late game, when the game state is close to even or the opponent has board control? Which would you prefer against Zoo?

[Jonathan Alexander]

The problem with both of these critter is that removal is literally everywhere. You will just get tempo-sinked so much with both of them. The reason Standstill is better in Merfolk is that Merfolk can still develop its board under Standstill but other decks can't. Resolving a Standstill usually results in cardadvantage, whereas resolving Selkie will usually result in a one-for-one. Of course people might say that "will be removed"-argument doesn't strike but here it does. I think against Zoo, this is even worse than Standstill. You can begin with like Island, Vial, Forcing their one-drop, Standstill but as soon as Selkie tries to attack, it will eat a bolt or run into Tarmogoyf or whatever.
In reality Selkie is even more situational than Standstill. One might argue that Selkie draws removal, but to be honest, I'd rather have another counter here. The thing is that tempo seems to be much more important than cardadvantage right now. And with both of these creatures you're opening yourself up to giant tempo sinks and neither of them is worth it. In Legacy, as long as you're playing aggro/aggro control, you're either swarm-aggro or playing a few creatures, all of which should be able to win the game on their own. Bant-incarnations might be exceptions since they have exalted and serve other purposes, I think jrsthethird mentioned the only situation where Selkie is at least worth playing, but even here I'd rather have something else, in other words something that can just win the game, like Tarmogoyf or even Rhox War Monk. And well, Progenitus is another option for these decks. Another reason to not run Selkie is that most lists are incredibly tight. There is not a single deck where Selkie would be effective that can afford to throw in two or three.
Vintage, on the other hand is another thing, but this is a Legacy board. So Selkie is not bad, it's just not worth playing in Legacy since there are much more efficient options, at least metagame-wise.